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7 Surprises About Freelance Writing
By Grace Bello
 Freelance writing is a very different proposition from working full-time in a newsroom. In an office environment, your organization provides structure to your finances, and your editor and peers usually provide structure to your ideas. But as a freelance writer, you’re expected to generate ideas and projects on your own.
Difficult? Yes. Impossible? No.
For anyone who's new to the freelance writing hustle, read on for insights that will help you out during your first year or two as an independent journalist.
The DNA of a Successful Book
GalleyCat
Hiptype has created an infographic called, "The DNA of a Successful Book," which explores what goes into a good book. According to the graphic, 300-page books have an 87 percent completion rate. Completion rates steadily drop the longer a book gets, with 700-word books only earning a 35 percent completion rate. The graphic also reveals that books that earned the most revenue cost an average of $3.99, while books that sell for $.99 are sold 12x as often as other titles.
Will Newspeg Become Pinterest for Journalists?
10,000 Words
Can you handle another news curation tool being thrown into the fray? If so, look to Newspeg, developed by longtime, "recovering" journalist Mark Potts. You've heard the concept before — there is a ton of information on the interwebs. How can you possibly sort through it all? Feed readers?
To Outline Or Not
Southern Writers Magazine
Outline types range from perhaps a single page of scribbled notes to what sounds to me like an excruciatingly detailed delineation: a one- or two-page synopsis for each chapter. Again, there's no style guide here, no right or wrong way of doing things. If it works for you, it's the right way.
How Starting a Blog Can Help Market Your Book
10,000 Words
As part of Mediabistro's Profit From Your Passion series, we gave you advice on creating your book proposal (whether it be nonfiction or a novel). The next step in getting your work into the hands of millions is marketing. Although it may seem daunting at first (thoughts of hitting up every Barnes & Noble in the country spring to mind), it's not as intimidating as it sounds.
Missed last week's issue? See which articles your colleagues read most.
The 'New' Self-Publishing
Good E-Reader (blog)
When self-publishing first began to take off as a viable option for authors (at least in terms of publishing and book sales, if not exactly for acceptance and respect), a typical scenario involved "resorting" to self-publishing after disappointment from the traditional industry. But that is rapidly changing, with more and more authors not even considering traditional publishing in the first place.
What Novels Can Tell Us About Memory
The Huffington Post
There's nothing unusual about someone being surprised by a childhood memory; it would be an odd fictional character who wasn't sometimes ambushed by her own past. When you take a creative writing class, you are exhorted to bring your fictional creations alive by giving them believable internal worlds. As well as giving your characters motivations, secrets, fears, and ambitions, you need to give them memories.
Writer of a Certain Age
The New York Times
Fay Weldon, author of The New Countess, writes: "I teach creative writing at Bath Spa University in England. It’s natural for my students to concern themselves with their own generation, whatever that happens to be. Only for the mature female writer does this prove something of a problem."
Author Survey Results: Expectations of Traditional Publishing and Self-Publishing
Digital Book World
When you self-publish a book, are you more likely to like the cover design? Will more people buy it? Is it more likely to be a best-seller? The 2014 Digital Book World and Writer's Digest Survey asked authors whether particular outcomes were more likely with self-publishing or traditional publishing.
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The ASJA Weekly
Alexandra Cantor Owens, ASJA Executive Director, 212.997-0947
Colby Horton, Vice President of Publishing, 469.420.2601
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Yvette Craig, Senior Content Editor, 469.420.2641
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